A MAN CONFLICTED
PACING BEHIND THE BENCH of the Quebec Nordiques, a stoic Jacques Plante was once again alone. The thought of being a coach had crossed his mind many times during his playing years, as had the notion of returning to the province of Quebec in some sort of hockey capacity. Now, at the age of 45, he had realized both of these desires as the coach and general manager of the Nordiques of the World Hockey Association for the 1973–74 season. Furthermore he was being paid a salary far better than any he’d seen as a player.
As the two teams skated in front of him, he was not a content man, though. His thoughts drifted back to the previous April, when he decided to take the Nordiques up on their tremendous offer. Despite the compensation, a 10-year contract with a salary rumoured to be a million dollars, he had still had difficulty making up his mind.
The Nordiques had approached Plante in February 1973, when he was still a Toronto Maple Leaf, but Plante hedged on making a decision before, in early April, expressing his desire to stay with the Bruins for another year.
“I changed my mind about retiring since I came to Boston,” he explained. “I like the setup. And it changes a goalie’s attitude quite a lot when he finds himself playing behind a strong defense again. Suddenly, it seems like an easier job. You don’t get so tired anymore. We’ve got everything worked out for next season already – how much money I’m to be paid and what my working arrangements are going to be.”1
And then, on May 3, in a startling about-face, Plante publicly spurned the Bruins and signed the contract to become the Nordiques’ head coach and general manager.
At the press conference announcing his hiring, he said that despite taking over both the coaching and managerial duties of the Nordiques, he still wanted to play in goal. With a year still remaining on his Bruins contract, he would be unable to tend the nets for Quebec in the upcoming season, “but next year I’ll definitely play. I feel like I’ve got five years left in me.”2
In Boston, a stunned Harry Sinden held his own press conference. It was clear to all those in attendance that it was not a happy occasion, especially considering that earlier in the week Sinden had told the media that Plante would be wearing a Bruins uniform in the upcoming season. “I talked with Jacques Friday” – five days earlier – “and he told me: ‘Give me a good deal and I’ll stay.’ We gave it to him and we were counting upon him to play about 30 games for us next year. Then I began hearing reports and called him Tuesday. He told me not to worry, our deal still stood. Now I get this news. He probably had the contract with the other team when he talked to me. If that’s true, I never want to speak to him again.”3 Plante, knowingly or not, had publicly embarrassed Harry Sinden. He would soon learn of the consequences.
As he settled in to his new job in management, Plante sought to make a splash. The Nordiques had failed to make the playoffs the season before, and in an effort to sell more tickets and improve the team, he hit upon an ingenious idea: he would make his former teammate Jean Béliveau a member of the Quebec Nordiques.
Béliveau had retired from the NHL only two seasons before in fitting fashion, hoisting the Stanley Cup aloft for the tenth time as he skated off the ice at Chicago Stadium in his last game as a professional. In retirement, he moved into the Canadiens front offices as the team’s vice-president. During his junior days in Quebec he had been the biggest star the city had ever seen. A return to Quebec, now, at the rink he once filled to capacity would be a tremendous publicity and marketing coup for the two-year-old Nordiques. So Plante and Paul Racine, the club’s principal backer, offered Béliveau a four-year deal for one million dollars.
“Whatever you put on the table, I won’t go back on the ice,” Béliveau told them. “Ten million, twenty million, it doesn’t matter. I’m forty, going on forty-one. I can’t play the quality of hockey I like any more. If I could, and if I wanted to play again, I’d play with the Canadiens. It wouldn’t be fair to you, the fans, or me … I just can’t do it anymore, and I’m the first guy to recognize it.”4
Having failed at his first attempt to land a marquee player, Plante took aim at a second, albeit lesser target. Réjean Houle had been the first overall selection by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1969 entry draft. A prolific scorer in junior, with the Canadiens he had assumed a checking role that had brought him a modicum of success, as he was now the proud holder of two Stanley Cup rings. In the hot summer months of 1973, he found himself in the middle of a contractual tug-of-war between the Canadiens and the Nordiques. Ultimately, he jumped the Canadiens ship and joined Quebec for what was rumoured to be a three-year, $100,000-per-season deal.
Plante next turned his attention to Serge Bernier, then starring with the Los Angeles Kings. A star with the Quebec Aces when in junior and a first-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, Bernier was coming off a 22-goal season. Plante had correctly predicted that the return of Bernier would help create some excitement at the ticket office. Picking up Bernier was undoubtedly Plante’s finest move as an executive, as Bernier would score 37 goals and 49 assists, resulting in 86 points that season, and become one of the WHA’s top offensive players.
With Houle and Bernier under contract, Plante was able to turn to another matter that had been on his mind over that summer. On August 8, he pulled out a sheet of Nordiques stationery and began typing a letter to Harry Sinden, the general manager of the Boston Bruins, and the man he had left a few months earlier.
Dear Harry:
I should have met you, talked with you or at least wrote to you much earlier than to-day to let you know that even if I decided to come to Quebec City, I will never forget the few weeks I spent in Boston.
I felt wanted from the start and this made me want to play for you and the Bruins. When I accepted to go to Boston, I was sure we could win the cup and all the time I was there, I conditioned myself to my utmost (physically and mentally) to be at my best.
I had confidence till the very end, but we didn’t make it. I wish I could have done better against New York, but I didn’t have it. One thing for sure, is that you got from me everything I had left.
I must thank you for the good words you had for me when we met in your office after the season was over. They made me feel very good … so good, that even if I was drained then, I could have gone back and played all those games all over again. I did many times in the following weeks and still think about them now and then.
When at the end, you told me that I did what you got me for, I felt warm and, on the way home. I started to dream about the coming year … that will not be. I am very sorry about this (not as much as you, you might say), and this was the most difficult decision I had to make in my life. But, as I explained earlier, I had no choice …
I had to tell you all this but something else too, and I wonder what can be your policy here. I would like to find out how I can have my equipment back. All of it was given to me by Emile Francis when I left New York. I brought it back to St. Louis, to Toronto and then to Boston. Naturally, some of it was replaced over those five years … and if you want me to pay something, I will gladly pay you back … but I need it badly as I want to play with the “Oldtimers” and keep in shape at the same time.
There is NO chance for me to come back to active playing. The more I think about it, the more I cannot see myself back in “Pro Hockey” facing the hard shots and having to stand all the pressure. So, would you please ask your trainer and put it aside and give it to the Whalers for me. We play them during training camp. Lefty Reed of the Hockey Hall of Fame also wants my last mask to put in his building with the other ones I used (He has 5 already).
Before closing, may I ask you what happened to my share of the money for the second place finish, the playoffs and my expense money to go to Boston from Toronto ($100.00 plus) and to come back home in Magog. Please ask your accountant.
We had agreed that my meals at the Sonesta would be paid by the Bruins, since I had to stay at the Hotel. I am enclosing a Memo from my contract with Toronto about the room. I understand that from the amount there can be a few expenses to take out.
Please do not take this letter the wrong way. I wish this situation would never have happened but since it has to be, let’s make the best out of it and not hold grudges. Who knows, maybe some day we will need each other again.
I am sorry, I took so much of your time but I had to let you know how I felt about you, the Bruins, Boston and playing there … and about to leaving.
Again, many thanks for everything and if you need me, please call me. (Even if we are in two different leagues, this is always hockey).
Until I hear from you, I remain.
Sincerely,
Jacques Plante5
The letter elicited no response from Harry Sinden. Plante waited, and phoned, and all he would find was the sound of silence. After three months, and increasingly desperate, he sent out another letter, dated December 6, 1973, this time to Weston W. Adams Jr., the Bruins president. This letter, too, received no response.
Plante couldn’t comprehend the position of the Bruins and the depth of their feelings of betrayal. In their trade with the Leafs, they had paid a high price for Plante, a first-round pick, as well as goalie Eddie Johnston. And while Plante helped the Bruins finish in second place, his playoff performance had been undeniably poor. With the Bruins’ goaltending in a state of flux, Sinden had been counting on Plante to play at least 30 games the next year. After all, he was under contract to play the 1973–74 season with the Bruins. By jumping to the Nordiques, Plante had violated the terms of his signed contract, after giving his word that he would come back. This had to be especially embarrassing for Sinden, who had publicly talked of Plante’s imminent return.
As a last resort, on March 21, 1974, after seven months without an answer from either Sinden or Adams, Plante wrote a letter to NHL president Clarence Campbell. He summed up his list of grievances with the Bruins and went so far as to claim that he had “found it necessary” to leave the Bruins for the Nordiques, and that Sinden “was very satisfied with me and the way I played and that even if I left for the W.H.A., the deal was worth it since according to him, Ken Broderick was as good as the departed Eddie Johnston.”6 Once again, it appeared that Plante felt his difficulties with the Bruins lay in his playoff performance and not in his decision to walk out on the last year of his contract.
Campbell responded to Plante four days later, informing him that his letter had been forwarded to Sinden. Campbell received a response from Sinden a week later. That letter helped reveal the depth of the bitterness that the Bruins organization had for their former goaltender. After dealing with the various financial issues, Sinden wrote about Plante’s still missing equipment: “I do not know what happened to the goalkeeper’s equipment which Plante brought with him from Toronto and which we feel became the outright property of the Boston Bruins at that time. In any event, the equipment is no longer in inventory here in Boston. I suspect that players or personnel in the organization may have taken action to rid the Boston organization of any memories that may exist of Jacques Plante’s short tenure here.”7
The last line of Sinden’s letter dripped with disdain. Campbell immediately forwarded the letter to Plante, and the dispute quickly degenerated into a squabble in which Plante continued to make accusations that Sinden denied.
On June 1, Plante responded to Sinden’s statement through Campbell, now acting as more of an intermediary than an adjudicator, and the two men began a written battle.
Looking over the increasing pile of letters between Plante and Sinden, Campbell sat down to make his decision. In early August he decided that the Bruins did in fact owe Plante $859.99 in bonus money from the previous year’s second-place finish, since the Leafs had no record of ever receiving the payment that Sinden had always maintained was sent. Plante also received his $2,500 share for finishing in the quarter-finals, minus the $500 fine for missing training camp, a fine that Campbell admitted to Sinden “was questionable.”8
Plante and the Bruins had finally extricated themselves from one another, with neither being satisfied with their brief tenure together or with their messy and prolonged parting.